HOPE AND COMFORT
Students’ ‘caring cards’ help patients in recovery
Marin young people or adults discharged from mental health treatment programs this holiday season can look forward to words of comfort and cheer from their neighbors, instead of dreading any stigma that could be attached to their recovery.
For the first time, county schools, agencies and health care providers are joining forces to give the former mental health or rehabilitation patients 2,000 “caring cards.” The cards, which will be mailed or handed out to the patients, are adorned with Marin student artwork and handwritten messages of hope and inspiration.
“This is something we can do as a community to support people who are struggling,” Nancy Vernon, aide to Marin County Supervisor Katie Rice, said. Vernon, who helped Marin teens stage a successful mental health art exhibit in September, is coordinating the newly created caring cards program.
Vernon said the idea is to support people in transition, while also providing sensitivity and empathy training for the students and adults who are writing the cards' messages.
“This offers a way to talk about mental health in a project-based container,” Vernon said. “That's the reason it's been well-received and a lot of people are participating.”
So far, 12 Marin public and private middle and high schools — and Dominican University of California in San Rafael — are enlisting students to write the messages. In addition, staff and volunteers at three Marin community groups are also writing the cards, Vernon said.
“Our school counselor forwarded me the mail about this, and I said ‘yes,'” Lisa Ferguson, a teacher at Hall Middle School in Larkspur, said. “I teach the new trimester-long community leadership class made up of seventh- and eighth-grade students.”
Last week, Ferguson showed the community leadership class a video training on the project.
She also presented a list of suggested sample messages to use as guidelines for writing the cards. The cards are blank on the inside so that people may use their own handwriting — and their own words — to express hope, cheer and comfort.
On the front, the cards are printed with six different pieces of student artwork taken from the September exhibit, plus a short message such as “We Believe in You.” The cards are available in three languages — English, Spanish and Vietnamese — and two Guatemalan dialects.
On the back is a list of community mental health resources, such as hotlines. Neither the sender nor the intended receiver is identified to preserve confidentiality.
“This is important work that can benefit many who are struggling in our community,” Vernon said.
When the cards are finished, they are picked up by more than a half-dozen community partners who will then either mail or hand out the cards to their patients as they are leaving.
“Some patients may not have families or other social connections to provide support,” said Kara Connors, a coordinator for the Marin County Suicide Prevention Collaborative.
“They may feel a sense of shame or embarrassment,” Connors said. “Receiving handwritten messages like these will promote a sense of belonging and acceptance so life is worth living for them.”
Scarlett Goh of Mill Valley, a high school junior and a member of the county’s Youth Action Team, said she and her peers first discussed the idea of creating cards after a summer seminar.
“It was immediately apparent to us that people can feel really vulnerable after discharge from a mental health facility, especially if they are alone,” Goh said. “We then conducted research about caring cards and found a survey that reported more than 80% of psychiatric unit patients said receiving a ‘get well soon’ card would have helped their recovery.”
The research included a 2021 pilot study that investigated caring cards sent to Veterans Administration psychiatric patients one week after their discharge. The survey found that patients expressed positive experiences about the cards.
The study also determined that 81% of the patients engaged in follow-up psychiatric care, which is typically neither done nor maintained by 70% of individuals who attempt suicide, according to the research.
Vernon said the plan is to get the cards to the providers by mid- or late-December so they can be distributed during the holidays. Providers include Buckelew Programs, Side by Side, Veterans Administration, National Alliance for Mental Illness, MarinHealth, Kaiser Permanente and Marin County’s mobile crisis unit and mental health services staff.
“We want this program to be sustainable,” Vernon said. “We hope to do it at least once per quarter.”
Schools involved so far include Terra Linda, San Rafael, Tomales and Marin Catholic high schools, Branson School, Marin Academy, Hall, Mill Valley and Tomales middle schools, Marin’s Community School, Marin Montessori and Dominican.
Other participating groups include North Marin Community Services, Multicultural Center of Marin and the Teen Girls Conference.
For more information or to volunteer, contact nvernon@marincounty.org or kconnors@marincounty. org. If you need help, or know someone who does, call Marin’s 24/7 suicide prevention and crisis hotline at 415-499-1100.